


And They Said, "Speak Now"

by slashter



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashter/pseuds/slashter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He literally jumps when the organ starts playing, and looks over to the entrance of the nave to see Nick appear, a smug smile on his face. His hair's still in that dastardly pompadour, and now he's slipped into a tight black suit jacket over his ensemble. Louis can now see the whole bride/groom thing happening with Harry and Nick's outfits, and it's like all of a sudden he's hit with the realization that this is is actually happening.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>[AU where Harry's getting married in 90 minutes and Louis has no idea what the hell he's going to do]</p>
            </blockquote>





	And They Said, "Speak Now"

**Author's Note:**

> I was going for a run and Speak Now by Taylor Swift came on my iPod and I listened to it like 5 times on repeat before I realized that I _had_ to write something based on it. So I literally wrote this in like 12 hours because I'm a terrible intern and did nothing at work today.
> 
> Unbeta'd because it's too short for me to care about mistakes WHOOPS
> 
> Also I literally googled "layout of a church" to figure out the names of all the places so I'm sorry if anything's wrong with, like, how I describe everything, heh.
> 
> I apologize in advance for all the cheese 
> 
> If you couldn't tell, the title is from Speak Now by Taylor Swift~
> 
>  **Disclaimer:**  
>  I don't know anyone in 1D or anyone associated with them. This work is purely a piece of fiction.

\------------

 

Louis pulls his hood up as he wraps his jacket tightly around himself. It's only around 10 in the morning but it's still fairly nippy outside, and he walks faster as some clock tower in his vicinity starts chiming away, as if to taunt him about how late and fucked he is. 

The wedding starts at 11:30 am sharp, the invitation said, though, knowing Harry, it'll probably only get underway by 11:45. So Louis has a solid hour and a half or so to get there, but he's still a good distance away, and he's got to get there by foot, since he sold his car ages ago. This, unfortunately, gives him a solid ninety minutes to do nothing but think about what the hell he's going to do once he walks into that church. 

He supposes he could just wait till the ceremony starts and run in, making a huge grand entrance and whatnot, but it's been at least a year since he's had any contact with Harry and he's fairly sure the last thing the boy would want is to see Louis stroll in, all chipper, as if absolutely nothing has changed over the past 400 days. 

Because, honestly, everything has. 

 

When Louis had stealthily packed his bags--or, to be more honest, _bag_ \--and flown his ass over to France, hoping to escape all contact with anyone he'd known in his life so far, he'd never imagined that things back home would keep going on, as if nothing had happened. Sure, it was a fair bit selfish of him to assume that everyone's lives would come to a dramatic stand-still until he had returned, but everything had just become _so_ fucked up that Louis was suffocating from all the judgements and responsibilities. Everyone's attention seemed to be on him 24/7, so could you really blame him?

The wedding invitation, though, was the biggest punch to the gut, and Louis remembers just standing there, in his mother's kitchen, staring at the cream card stock, unable to breathe. When Jay had wandered in a moment later, the smile had slid off her face and she'd made a valiant effort to snatch the card out of Louis' hands, but he'd moved too fast for her. 

Of _course_ Harry would've sent an invitation to his mother--Louis had definitely dated him long enough for that to be acceptable--but she hadn't mentioned a thing to Louis about it, so that night he'd locked himself up in his old bedroom and cried himself to sleep. 

 

Louis hadn't left the house since then, and really hadn't planned to until Jay had lightly knocked on his door this morning, dressed formally enough for him to easily guess where she was going.

"I'm taking the girls," she'd said, her voice soft and understanding, and she'd hesitated a bit before closing the door. "It's not too late, y'know. He never stopped loving you."

Louis hadn't reacted until after he'd heard the car pull out of the driveway. He'd sat up immediately, pulled on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, and walked out the front door, his heart thumping wildly, numb to the protests his head was screaming at it. 

 

And now he's here, strolling through the quiet streets of his hometown, and his pulse races as he realizes that he's almost reached his destination. 

He stops as the church comes into view. It's huge, of course, because between Harry and Nick's families, they can--and did--rent out the most lavish space necessary. Neither family is really that religious, to be honest, even though Harry wears that cross necklace most of the time, so Louis finds the whole thing stupidly ironic and he can feel a bad taste seeping into his mouth as he practically tiptoes up the steps to the entrance. 

 

He pushes the door open slightly and sees an empty hallway, so he slips inside and walks alongside the wall, hood still up, trying as hard as possible to go unnoticed by any individual rushing by him. 

"There you are!" A voice calls from behind him, and Louis freezes guiltily before a second voice chuckles from his front. He glances up and easily recognizes Niall, whose forearm is now in the deathly grip of that one dark-skinned boy, what's his name again?

"Zayn, _ow_!" Niall whines, and everything clicks back into place in Louis' head. Zayn, yeah. They--him, Harry, and Zayn--had gone to an art show together that one time. Harry had spent the entire time pointing out all the nude people in the paintings, much to Zayn's chagrin and Louis' delight. 

"Liam!" Niall suddenly cries, and a broad-shouldered boy with kind eyes appears, pulling Zayn's hand off of Niall while giving him a knowing look. 

"How much have you had to drink, Nialler?" This Liam guy says, and Niall pauses to think but Louis can see him sway a bit. 

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake!" Zayn exclaims, grabbing both Liam and Niall. "You're the fucking _best_ _man_ , Niall!" He says, dragging the two guys behind him and disappearing into a room that Louis doesn't even know is there. 

 

Louis pauses, exhaling slowly to get his heart to stop racing. He keeps walking forward, and after a bit he hears another voice, but this one is shrill and angry, the person screaming at the top of their lungs. 

"I cannot _believe_ you, Greg!" The voice cries, and then there's the sound of something breaking. "I said a _pale_ _rose_ and you got me _hot_ _pink_?"

Louis' curiosity gets the best of him and he dashes to the source of the sound, which turns out to be another almost-hidden room, the door propped open just wide enough for him to peek in. 

It doesn't really come as a surprise that the voice comes from Nick, who's decked out in some garish pale pink vest, his hair piled on the top of his head messily. It looks like a collapsed cinnamon roll, and Louis snorts as he watches a harried hair stylist with pale purple hair run alongside him, spraying hairspray at the bouffant every ten seconds. There's a shattered vase on the ground, which explains the noise from earlier, and Louis can see Nick glaring at someone who he concludes is probably the so-called Greg. 

"I--I'm sorry, Nick, I didn't--" Greg stutters. 

"Fuck _off_." Nick orders, and Greg hightails it out of the room, narrowly avoiding Louis and pushing the door open wider so that Louis can see Nick's family lounging around the are, bored and haughty-looking, dressed in equally strange pastel ensembles. 

 

Louis shakes his head at the sight and moves away from the door, shuffling faster down the hallway till he can see he's come to the nave. It's decorated beautifully, although the color scheme is going off of Nick's nightmare of a vest. There's a tall man at the door who's checking everyone's invitations, and luckily Louis manages to sneak into the back of a small crowd of someone's relatives as they're let through.

There's several empty pews, but Louis can't bring himself to sit down right now, so he walks over to one of the large ceiling-to-wall windows, effectively hiding himself behind one of the semi-opaque curtains as he looks out of the window. 

He doesn't know how long he spends staring off into space, but his attention is drawn back inside as soon as the noise level suddenly drops. His gaze darts over to the chancel, where he can now see Niall, Zayn, and Liam lined up on the left. All of them have sufficiently grim looks on their faces, and Louis' breath catches as his eyes fall on the fourth person, the one right next to Niall. His eyes are red and hair's a bit mussed but it's Harry, oh god, it's _his_ Harry, and he looks absolutely devastated. 

He's dressed in a close-fitting suit, all white, even the tie, except for the same pink vest that Nick had been wearing. He looks positively angelic, however, and Louis stops breathing as Harry looks over in his direction. He must be hidden fairly well, though, because Harry just scans over where Louis is and searches the crowd inside the church. As soon as he's looking straight ahead, he freezes up, cheeks blazing, his mouth pressed into a tight line. Louis catches Niall reaching out and gripping Harry's shoulder tight, squeezing it a few times until Harry lets out a long breath.

 

There's a large crowd by now, and almost all the pews are filled up, but the atmosphere in the venue seems to be anything but cheerful. There's a tense sort of feeling in the air, amplified by Harry's peculiar demeanor. Louis catches Harry glancing over at the pew in front of him anxiously, and easily recognizes his mother and sister, even from the back. He'd spent hours with Anne and Gemma whenever he'd been over at Harry's house, and he can see that Gemma's pretty face is scrunched up in disapproval, while Anne just looks heartbreakingly sad, as if the whole situation's out of her hands--which Louis strongly suspects is the case.

He literally jumps when the organ starts playing, and looks over to the entrance of the nave to see Nick appear, a smug smile on his face. His hair's still in that dastardly pompadour, and now he's slipped into a tight black suit jacket over his ensemble. Louis can now see the whole bride/groom thing happening with Harry and Nick's outfits, and it's like all of a sudden he's hit with the realization that this is is actually happening. Harry's getting married to Nick and Louis can't do anything about it. He bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood.

 

Nick.

Louis clearly remembers the first time he'd met him. Harry had dragged him along to one of the many country club parties his family was always attending, and Louis had scowled when he'd been told that he'd have to dress up. So he'd pulled on his Sunday best or whatever and tagged along with Harry and Anne and Gemma, who'd all poked his cheeks and commented on how cute he'd looked. He hadn't believe any of them, of course, until Harry had pulled him aside and smoothed out the collar of his light cream-colored polo, his fingers lingering at Louis' neck.

"You look absolutely breathtaking, all right?" Harry had declared, tracing Louis' jaw, and Louis had gulped, his breath shaky, nodding. Harry had smiled and grabbed Louis' hand, gripping it tight as they made their way inside the huge hall.

The next hour or so had been a blur of introductions, and Louis had been so glad that the whole community wasn't particularly homophobic because there wouldn't have been any way he was letting go of Harry's hand.

 

"Louis, this is Nick." Harry had then said, and Louis had looked up--even further up than usual--at a smug-looking brunette. He was skinny, with long lashes, and his smile made Louis want to puke from nervousness.

"Hmm." Nick had said, pursing his lips, his eyes grazing up and down Louis. Louis had easily been able to tell that Nick was taking in his slightly-scuffed dress shoes and rolled-up khakis and judging his half-price outfit. He'd gripped Harry's hand tighter and Harry had thankfully instantly understood, nodding a silent goodbye at Nick and leading Louis over to the open bar.

 

"He hates me." Louis had announced, after getting halfway through his gin and tonic. "Everyone hates me. I'm pathetic here. Why couldn't we have gone bowling or something?"

Harry had chuckled and reached over to smooth out Louis' hair. "Hey." He'd said, his eyes sparkling, and Louis must have melted on the spot. " _I_ love you. That's what matters, right?" Louis had nodded and smiled, but his heart hadn't been in it. 

Harry must have noticed, though, because he'd grabbed Louis' hand and pulled him over to the bathroom. He'd kissed him in one of the locked stalls, slowly but urgently, and then stripped him down and opened him up with his fingers until Louis had been sobbing for more. Harry had fucked him torturously slow, swallowing all of the little noises Louis had made, whispering about how beautiful Louis was and how much he loved him with every thrust.

 

And now they're here, somewhere Louis is sure neither of them would have ever imagined, but after all the pressure Harry had been under to get married and all the judgements that had been thrown Louis' way once his class and family history had been brought up, Louis just couldn't have been around here anymore.

He knows now that he should've probably told Harry he was running away and Harry would've come with him, the two of them running off together to somewhere stupid, like Louis had done alone. 

But it's too late, and watching Nick saunter down the aisle with the most pageant-girl smile he's ever seen breaks something inside of Louis, and suddenly all he wants to do is scream until he's hoarse, until Harry's back in his arms. His legs start shaking, so he quickly slips out from behind the curtain and settles into one of the empty seats in the pew closest to him, startling the two old ladies already sitting there. He murmurs a half-hearted apology but keeps his eyes on Nick, who practically glides over to Harry, his entire demeanor dripping of conceitedness.

 

Louis has never seen Harry look like this before. He's completely shaking, and Niall's practically wrapped around his torso, trying to keep him steady. Nick reaches out his hand, and when Harry doesn't take it, he grabs Harry's wrist, pinching it tight. Harry winces and Louis wants to throw up.

The preacher starts talking but Louis doesn't hear a word. All of his attention is focused on Harry, how his gaze is locked on the ground, how his wrist is hanging limp in Nick's grip, how he looks like he's about to cry at any moment.

"I do." Nick says, and Louis' eyes dart up to the man, how he's practically preening himself on having everyone's attention. He shakes Harry's wrist a bit for the expected reply and Harry finally looks up, his eyes watery. A slight murmur runs through the crowd but Nick is staring Harry down and Harry looks like he's about to break.

Finally, he slowly nods, and Nick narrows his eyes but turns to the preacher, raising an eyebrow. The preacher must accept Harry's movement as satisfactory, because he clears his throat and looks out into the crowd.

 

"If there is anyone present," he begins, and Louis' stomach suddenly twists into a tight knot, because he knows what's coming next, "who believes that there is a reason why these two should not be wed, speak now, or forever hold your peace."

There's a silence that follows, and Nick looks out into the crowd, challenging anyone to stand up and say something. Harry looks too, but just to Anne and Gemma, his eyes silently pleading for some sort of help, and Louis can't stand it any longer. He clears his throat loudly and then all eyes are on him, and there's no way he can turn back now.

 

His hands are shaking, so he places them on the back of the pew in front of him to steady himself as he stands up. He slowly pushes his hood back and runs a nervous hand through his hair, his eyes on the ground.

When he looks up, he can feel a hundred gazes burning into his sides, but the only person he's focused on is looking right at him, and when his eyes lock with Harry's, his mouth goes dry. He can see a million different emotions flit across Harry's face with every passing moment: fear, surprise, shock, love, adoration, anger, and so much more. In the end, though, his face relaxes, and Louis can see the beginnings of a smile on his lips, which is what makes him finally break the heavy, expectant silence.

"I'm--" he starts, and clears his throat again. "I'm not the kind of boy who should be rudely barging in on a white-tie occasion, but, Harry, you, you're not the kind of boy who should be marrying the wrong guy."

 

And of _course_ there's another silence right after, as everyone takes in what Louis' just said and their eyes move over to Harry and Nick to judge their reactions. Nick is furious, of course, his cheeks almost as pink as his stupid vest, but Harry is just standing agape. Louis gulps and then Harry grins, so large, and all Louis can do in reply is giggle--fucking _giggle_ \--before Harry is twisting his hand out of Nick's grip and racing down to where Louis is.

"Hey!" Nick calls, grabbing Harry's shoulder. "Where do you think you're going, _husband_?"

Harry spins around, shoving Nick back. "Fuck off, Nick." 

Nick grabs his other shoulder now too, pulling him close. "You said 'I do'."

"No." Harry says, trying to wriggle his way out of Nick's hands. "No, I didn't. You can ask anyone here, you asshole."

"You're not going anywhere." Nick hisses, and then there's an enraged cry as Niall literally _launches_ himself at Nick, throwing a hard punch at the taller boy's face.

"Fuck off, you bastard!" He cries, and then spins around to Harry, patting his cheek. "Go on, man, we'll take care of this one." He turns so he catches Louis' eye and winks. "Good to see you again, Lou."

Louis has been staring at the commotion, shocked, but laughs nervously at the greeting and waves meekly in reply. Niall pushes Harry over and then Harry's stumbling over his big feet, running over to Louis.

 

"Lou." He says, amazed, but no, that's too good for Louis, he doesn't deserve this.

"I'm sorry." Louis says, hands wrapping around Harry's neck. "I'm sorry, so, so, sorry, Harry, I--"

Harry silences him with a kiss, long and deep, and Louis can hear half the crowd _awww_ and the other half gasp, but he automatically melts into it. He whines as Harry breaks away but then sighs as he kisses his eyelids, his nose, and his cupid's bow.

"You're back." He says, and Louis wants to cry because Harry's so fucking beautiful and perfect and not even angry or anything. "You're back, and I know what you're thinking, Louis, but that's all I care about. I didn't say 'I do', Louis, you know that, right?" He asks, and Louis nods. "Good. Fuck, Louis, I have to change out of this stupid suit but I'll meet you 'round the back, all right?"

Harry grasps Louis' face with both of his hands and angles it up to face him. "I'm so glad you came, Lou. I prayed every night for this, I--I'm so glad you were here. Thank you."

And then they're kissing again, and Louis' cheeks are wet but he doesn't know which one of them is crying--it could be both of them, honestly. He can vaguely make out a scuffle in the background and can hear Nick's voice raising in protest but Harry's all he cares about right now, and he feels like he's going to explode from how happy he feels.

 

When Harry pulls apart to wipe at his eyes, Louis grabs his hands and leans his forehead against the other boy's. 

"Marry me." He whispers, and Harry inhales sharply.

"What?"

"Marry me. I'm an idiot. I should've asked you this ages ago and I didn't, I ran away because I didn't know how to handle all that responsibility and now, now I--all I can imagine is being with you. You were all I thought about for this past year, Harry, every day and every night, and all I want is to be with you forever, Harry, please."

"Yes." Harry says, and he's giggling, so giddily that Louis smiles. "Yes, Louis, fuck, yes, oh my god. I--" He spins around, searching for someone, and Louis sees him wave at Anne and Gemma, both with relieved looks on their faces. Louis catches sight of his own family, his mother smiling wide and his sisters just looking mostly confused, but happy nonetheless.

"C'mon." Harry says, and grabs Louis' hand, pulling him out of the hall. 

He runs down the hallway, laughing loudly, and Louis grips Harry's hand tighter, zooming through the rows of confused guests and workers until they reach the main doors of the church. 

 

"Where're we going?" Louis asks, and Harry smirks and pushes open the door. There's an extravagantly large limousine parked out front, decorated in frilly pink and white ribbons, and Harry runs up to it, holding the door open for Louis before he hops in himself.

"Cancun." He answers, once they've both sat down, biting his lip happily. Louis shakes his head, scoffing.

"Are you _kidding_ me? Harry, I don't have any clothes with me. I don't have my passport, either. Fuck, I don't even have my _toothbrush_."

"Well then," Harry says, sliding up the seat so that he's hovering over Louis, licking his lips. "We'll just have to make a pit stop at your place, won't we?"

 

\------------

**Author's Note:**

> WELL THAT WAS FUN, KIDS
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://slashter.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slashter_fic)!


End file.
